If Starmer and Reeves really want a greener, cleaner, wilder nation, then why attack vital state bodies that are already on their knees?

This might sound astonishing, but the UK government’s core programme now appears to be the same as Donald Trump’s: dismantling the administrative state. There’s less theatre, but the results could prove harder to contest. Absurd? Consider the evidence.

Take the government’s brutal expulsion of the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, Marcus Bokkerink. His crime, it seems, was to take his role seriously, seeking to prevent the formation of corporate monopolies. He has been replaced with the former manager of Amazon UK, a company widely accused of monopolistic practices. This is pure Trump: kick out the regulator and insert someone from a company they were seeking to regulate.